GALLAGHER'S WORD

OK, so it's not a sports post. But still, worth reading guys and girls.

Everyone who followed The Office for nine seasons watched as America said goodbye to their favorite paper company. For me, it reassured one of the reasons I became addicted to the show many years ago: Jim and Pam.

In life, we all need something to root for. Whether it is real or not, it gives us a feeling that people are genuinely good and that the good will outweigh the bad in the end. The Jim and Pam character storyline is one I found myself rooting for, almost as though they were real people working in an office five hours away from me.

The story was compelling. Pam was engaged to Roy, and Jim liked Pam. The typical, awkward situation you'll find in a sitcom. Just watching the two characters interact, with Jim at his desk and Pam the receptionist, you were pulling for the two to somehow come together, interested to see how the writers would do it.

The writers took us through the gauntlet. Jim telling Pam how he felt, then leaving for Samford, coming back with a new love interest and Pam realizing she had feelings for Jim, leading up to Jim not getting the corporate job and driving back to Scranton to ask Pam out.

Jim and Pam kept viewers wondering what would happen. They created a big fan in me. Every Thursday night, I became more obsessed with the show. When Jim finally proposed to Pam at a rest stop between Scranton and New York City, I was excited. Finally, Jim and Pam are engaged! It was like two of my friends were getting married.

As the show continued, you had Pam getting pregnant before her and Jim tied the knot, the interesting wedding at Niagara Falls, and half the office getting Pam to the hospital when she went into labor, the two were following the stages of a relationship. For me, it seemed to be all too much, too quick.

As the show neared Steve Carell's final season, and Jim and Pam became parents and out of the blue, Pam is pregnant with another kid, I began to dislike the two characters that made the show (next to the awkward antics of Michael Scott) worth watching.

Maybe I was just cynical, especially since it was hard to watch them go through a few seasons as boring, often unbearable parents.

Jim and Pam's relationship to a lot offered a glimmer of hope. We all deal with the sometimes harsh, cruel world around us. It's human nature to want to find someone who would love and care about you, no matter what.

These two characters did that throughout the series. But the biggest challenge came in this final season, and in the end, reminded me why I cheered for these two along with millions of other viewers.

With Jim moving back and forth between Philadelphia and Scranton with the upstart sports agency, it tested their marriage. Some viewers fearing that divorce papers would be written up by the end of the series. In the end, Jim gave up his dream for Pam and went back to Scranton full time at Dunder Mifflin.

All is right with the world, right? Well, no. Pam feels like Jim isn't truly happy with his choice. Jim, with the help of the documentary crew, puts together a montage of his love for Pam. In that scene, you're shown as a viewer of what you've watched for eight years and liked about the two.

But it gets better. It's Pam's move to show how much she cares about Jim. In tonight's finale (Spoiler Alert), she shows her belief in Jim's dream and sells their home and plans on starting a new chapter of their life in Austin. Cheesy? Maybe. Predictable? That's a toss up.

In the end, I take this lesson from the show. In eight years, the show's writers took us through the stages of what we want to call the perfect relationship. But even the "perfect" relationship isn't always such.

It was like every romantic comedy in the beginning. Instead of taking viewers through the steps easily, like every movie with that genre you see these days, the two were taken through every emotional and unpredictable stage of a relationship, and we were on for the ride, and while that ride seemed to come to a halt after the honeymoon was over and the kids came, you try to understand that Jim and Pam aren't two young adults anymore. But even a married couple with two kids will have obstacles.

The final season showed us those obstacles. In the end, the two were happy and so were we as viewers.

I think we're all looking for our Jim or Pam in life. Television makes it look so simple, but it's not. Some people search for the right person for years. Others get lucky and follow every detail. Even in our darkest moments in life, we could see John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer portray these two characters for 30 minutes a week over eight years and remind us that there is hope. Even when cynicism arises, like it did for me watching the last few season of The Office, I learn that it will not always be perfect and that plateau eventually ends and a new mountain of obstacles await you in life, much like it did for these two in the end.

So thank you writers of The Office, who restored my faith in what made me a big fan of the show for all these years.